Inara and I started a new class today - Attention At Heel. It's to help dogs find the heel position and make it fun for them. I think it will be a really good class as Inara's heel is just one thing that's really lacking. She can occasionally manage a gorgeous, "prancing pony" attention heel, but not often, and not for long!

Anyway, there are 3 other dogs in there so Ginger put us by the bathroom so we can have our "sucks to be you" room available. We had our usual obnoxiousness upon first entering, but she settled down quite a bit after that. She was a bit barkier than she has been, but I attribute that to not being in class for a bit and being cooped up doing nothing this past week due to the heat. Also, the other dogs are 2 Goldens (one of whom is about 107, and the other can't stop fussing at the end of his leash and biting and tugging at it) and a young yellow Lab who kept staring at Inara - not aggressively, just rudely. So not the usual line-up that she's used to being around.

ANYWAY, Ginger wants us to teach our dogs to target things with their back feet. I had to laugh because I'm pretty sure Inara forgets that she has those. But Ginger wanted Inara to be the example dog since she's done shaping before. So in about 5 minutes I shaped her into backing up so her back feet were on a folded blanket. It was pretty cool, and the other students were really impressed. Like literally oohing and aahing!

Ginger also used us as a good example of attention at heel when Inara was sitting beside me looking up at me. So we got to be the good example for a few things today! What a new experience!

On a side note, there was a woman in there who was DRIVING ME CRAZY. She was literally clicking once per second no matter what her dog did, and only giving a treat every 10-15 clicks. Ginger THANK GOD noticed it and correct her but for about 5 minutes there was non-stop clicking beside me. Jeebus it was annoying.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

Inara did fantastic today! There were only the 2 Golden Retrievers so that made it a bit easier. But she was on her game today. Very focused when we were working and very relaxed when we weren't. She spent most of our down time sprawled on the floor, with the occasional rolling on the back while "roo roo-ing." Quite the comedian, .

We worked a little bit on hand targeting as the other 2 people don't have solid touch commands. We worked a bit on fold-back downs. We'll have to practice those. Ginger recommended giving them another cue as most dogs think "down" means "put your butt down and then put your front end down." She wants them to learn fold-back downs because she said they are easier for the dog to do when you're doing a down in motion, and they're faster so you don't risk losing points for speed in a competition.

We worked a lot on different turns while heeling - basic left and right turns, u-turns, about turns and Schutzhund turns. Inara and I got to be the example of how to do the Schutzhund turns since she kind of knows it already.

She did really great, even when the other dogs were moving around and got within about 15' while we were practicing our turns. She stayed really focused on me and we only had to do a "sucks to be you" sequestering twice!

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

Did your trainer talk to you at all about practicing positions on a table or using some other type of area limiting thing? I do this with mine because it keeps them from creeping and definitely helps to develop that fold-back down.